Frequently Asked Questions
Find answers to common questions about using CareLaunch to launch and manage your virtual care practice.
Getting Started
How do I sign up for CareLaunch?
For a solo practice, check signup availability. The page will tell you if an invitation code is required. If you need an invitation, contact support@carelaunch.health. For a group practice, contact sales@carelaunch.health for assisted setup. For a walkthrough of signup, checkout, and activation, see Create Your Account.
How long does it take to set up my practice?
Most practices can be fully configured and seeing patients within a few days. The core setup — branding, providers, scheduling, and payments — can be completed in a single session. More complex configurations like custom forms, automations, and EHR integrations may take additional time.
What do I need before I start?
You'll need your practice name, logo, provider details (credentials, NPI numbers, specialties), and a Stripe account for payment processing. If you're importing existing patients, prepare a CSV file with their demographics.
Can I try CareLaunch before committing?
Contact sales@carelaunch.health to learn about available plans and trial options. For help with an account you already have, email support@carelaunch.health.
Scheduling
How do patients book appointments?
Patients can book appointments through the patient portal at any time, or during the registration workflow as part of onboarding. They select a service, optionally choose a provider, pick an available time slot, and confirm the booking. See Appointment Scheduling for details.
What calendar views are available?
CareLaunch offers four calendar views: Month (find available days at a glance), Week (compare options across a week), Day (see detailed time slots), and Table (quickly scan next available slots). Both patients and providers can switch between views.
How do I set provider availability?
Availability is not a tab on the provider page. Group practices open Availability in the sidebar. Solo practices open Schedule, then Manage > Manage Recurring Hours. For a day off, use Manage > Out of Office on Schedule. Buffer time is one organization-wide setting: Settings > Scheduling, field Appointment Buffer Time, from 0 to 60 minutes.
Can patients reschedule or cancel appointments?
Yes. Rescheduling and cancellation are supported based on policies you configure. Patients can make changes through the patient portal, and providers can manage appointments from the admin dashboard.
Does CareLaunch send appointment reminders?
Yes. CareLaunch sends automatic appointment reminders to patients and providers by email, text message (SMS), and in-app notification. By default, an email goes out 24 hours before and a text 2 hours before. Admins choose the channels and send times at Settings > Reminders. See Appointment Reminders.
Patients
How do patients register for my practice?
Patients self-register through your branded patient portal. You configure the registration workflow to include the steps you need — account creation, demographics collection, consent forms, custom intake questionnaires, and optionally scheduling. See Patient Registration.
Can I import existing patients?
Yes, if you are a Platform Admin and the practice is not on Solo. Data Import is its own sidebar item. It is hidden on Solo, and Organization Admins can't open it. Click New, upload a .csv or .txt file (comma, tab, or bar delimited), map columns to CareLaunch fields, then review and accept the import. If you can't use Data Import, contact support@carelaunch.health. See Data Imports.
How do I handle duplicate patients?
CareLaunch includes duplicate patient detection to help you identify and merge duplicate records. See Duplicate Patient Management for the matching criteria and merge process.
What patient information does CareLaunch store?
CareLaunch stores demographics, contact information, medical history, documents, consent records, appointment history, communication logs, and custom form responses — all as FHIR-compliant resources. All data is encrypted at rest and in transit.
Can patients access their own information?
Yes. Patients access their information through the branded patient portal, where they can view appointments, send secure messages, complete forms, and manage their profile.
Tasks & Care Coordination
What are tasks in CareLaunch?
Tasks are structured activities for managing patient care — things like follow-up calls, document reviews, referral coordination, or care plan steps. Tasks can be created manually or generated automatically through automations. See Tasks.
Can I create subtasks?
Yes. Subtasks provide a detailed checklist within a parent task, ensuring all necessary actions are completed. Notes can also be added to tasks for team communication and context.
What is the board view?
The Board View is a kanban-style interface for visual workflow management. Drag tasks across columns to update their status, and use filters to focus on specific task types, assignees, or patients.
How do care plans work?
Care plans use Plans to define standardized sets of tasks for common care scenarios. When a plan is applied to a patient, the platform automatically creates the corresponding tasks, ensuring consistent care delivery.
Campaigns & Communication
Who can use campaigns?
Campaigns aren't included on the Solo plan. The Practice plan includes the legacy Pinpoint campaigns, and Enterprise also includes the newer Campaigns builder. A Platform Admin builds and sends campaigns. Organization Admins can build segments and manage outreach identities. The legacy Pinpoint segments and attribute mapping are being retired; see Attribute Mapping (Legacy) for the date. See Campaigns Overview.
What communication channels does CareLaunch support?
Where campaigns are available, they send email and SMS. Campaign steps can also send a secure message to the patient portal or create a task for your team. Campaigns can run on a schedule, once at a set time, or in response to events such as a new patient record. See Campaigns Overview.
How do I create a patient segment for targeted messaging?
Go to Outreach → Segments and build the segment from conditions on your patient data, such as demographics, lab values, appointments, or questionnaires. Segments are live: they are re-evaluated every time a campaign runs. See Segments.
Are campaigns HIPAA-compliant?
Yes. CareLaunch is designed to maintain HIPAA compliance in all campaign operations. Best practices include de-identifying data where possible, using only necessary PHI, and obtaining explicit consent before using patient data in campaigns.
Can I use templates for my messages?
Yes. Create reusable message templates for email, SMS, and secure messages under Settings → Templates. Use {{FirstName}} to personalize a message with the patient's first name.
How does the opt-out process work?
Patients can unsubscribe from email with the link in the footer, after which campaign emails skip them. Patients who reply STOP to a text stop receiving texts from that number. Email and SMS opt-outs are separate. See Opt-Outs for details.
Notifications
Why am I (or my staff) not receiving notification emails?
Notifications pass through two layers of settings, and either one can stop them. Check both:
- Organization settings — Go to Settings > Notifications > Notification Types and confirm the notification type is enabled for your organization. When a type is disabled here, it is suppressed for everyone — email, SMS, and in-app alike — regardless of individual preferences. Note that most notification types have separate Admin and Patient versions; make sure you're checking the row for the right audience (use the audience filter at the top of the list).
- User settings — Have the affected user open their profile icon (top-right) > Settings > Notifications and confirm the notification type is toggled on for the Email channel. Preferences are per-user and per-channel, so email can be off while in-app is on.
If both layers look right, also verify:
- The user's email address is correct on their account, and the message isn't in a spam/junk folder
- For SMS, the user has a verified phone number on file
- For appointment cancellation/reschedule notices to providers, the Notify Provider toggles under Settings > Scheduling are on
- Use the Send a test notification button on the notification type (Settings > Notifications > Notification Types) to confirm end-to-end delivery
See the full troubleshooting checklist for a step-by-step walkthrough.
One person stopped getting notifications but everyone else still gets them. Why?
That points to user-level settings rather than organization settings: check that user's notification preferences (profile icon > Settings > Notifications), their email address and phone number, and that their account is active. If everyone in a role stopped receiving a notification at the same time, check the organization-level toggle instead — someone may have disabled that notification type for the whole organization.
Can I customize what notification emails say?
Yes. Admins can edit the email subject, email body, SMS message, and in-app message for any notification type under Settings > Notifications > Notification Types. Templates support dynamic variables like {patientName} and {appointmentTime}. See Notification Settings for the full variable reference.
Integrations
Which EHR systems does CareLaunch integrate with?
Epic. Setup is done with the CareLaunch team, and it is not limited to a particular plan. CareLaunch does not integrate with Cerner, Athena, or HL7v2.
What data can be exchanged with Epic?
The Epic connection can search practitioners and their roles, match a CareLaunch patient to an Epic patient, create a patient in Epic, and look up a provider's open schedule days. Any plan can use it once the CareLaunch team sets it up. It does not exchange observations, conditions, tasks, or appointments as a general read and write API.
Can I transfer data via FTP/SFTP?
Yes. Batch data transfer via FTP/SFTP is available on Enterprise plans for organizations that need to exchange large datasets on a scheduled basis.
Billing & Payments
How does payment processing work?
CareLaunch uses Stripe for payment processing. Connect Stripe from Integrations, then choose a Stripe product on each healthcare service that should be paid (Settings > Healthcare Services). Patients can pay with credit cards, HSA/FSA, and other methods Stripe supports. See Healthcare Services.
Can I issue refunds?
Yes. Refunds can be processed directly from the CareLaunch platform through your connected Stripe account.
Does CareLaunch handle insurance billing?
CareLaunch focuses on cash-pay and direct-pay. It does not include an insurance billing or accounting integration. Except on Solo, payment activity can be exported as CSV from Reports > Financial Reconciliation.
Where can I see my revenue data?
The Reporting section includes financial reconciliation. Reports are hidden on Solo. You can also see transaction data in your Stripe dashboard.
Where do I see my plan and billing history?
Open Settings > Billing & Plan. Platform Admins and Organization Admins can open it. It is hidden on Enterprise and custom plans; contact sales@carelaunch.health to change those. The page shows the current plan, billing history, and the actions to change, cancel, or resume. Plans are billed by provider; see Billing & Plan for the limits.
Security & Compliance
Is CareLaunch HIPAA-compliant?
CareLaunch is built for HIPAA, and a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) is included with all plans. Patient data is encrypted at rest and in transit. Practices are hosted in the United States. See HIPAA Compliance and Security Overview for how the hosting provider is audited.
Does CareLaunch provide a BAA?
Yes. A Business Associate Agreement is included with all CareLaunch plans. This is executed during onboarding.
What are my compliance responsibilities?
While CareLaunch provides compliant infrastructure, your practice is responsible for staff HIPAA training, internal privacy policies, regular security risk assessments, and managing patient-rights workflows. This is a shared responsibility model.
How is patient data protected?
Patient data is encrypted at rest and in transit. Access is controlled through role-based permissions, two-factor authentication, and audit logs. Automated backups and disaster recovery are part of the platform. Practices are hosted in the United States.
What user roles are available?
Platform Admin (full access, including campaigns and data import), Organization Admin (organization settings, users, and billing where the plan shows it), Instance Admin (an assigned instance), Base Admin (a limited administrator role), Schedule Manager (schedules and appointments), and AI Users (AI features such as Concierge, which also needs Platform Admin or Organization Admin). Solo practices cannot add users. See Users.
Platform & Technical
What browsers and devices are supported?
CareLaunch works in current versions of Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari. Virtual visits need camera and microphone permission. See System Requirements.
Does CareLaunch support virtual visits (telehealth)?
Yes. Virtual visits are part of appointment booking. Patients receive email invitations with join links when an invitation template is configured and they have a valid email address. Otherwise, staff need to share the join details another way. See Virtual Visits.
Can I use a custom domain for my patient portal?
Yes. CareLaunch supports custom domains so your patient portal appears under your own branded URL.
Does CareLaunch have an API?
Yes. The API is read-only. It searches and reads FHIR R4 resources, such as Patient, Task, Observation, and Encounter, with OAuth 2.0. It does not create, update, or delete resources. A Platform Admin creates API credentials under Settings > API Clients, which is not available on Solo.
Can I automate workflows?
Yes. The Automations system lets you create trigger-based actions — automatically create tasks, send messages, update records, or notify team members based on events like appointment bookings, form submissions, or status changes.
Can I create custom intake forms?
Yes. The Forms builder lets you create custom intake questionnaires, consent documents, and assessments using a drag-and-drop interface. Forms can be added to registration workflows or assigned to patients on demand.
What is FHIR and why does it matter?
FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) is the modern standard for exchanging healthcare data electronically. CareLaunch is built natively on FHIR R4, which means your data is structured for interoperability with EHRs, health information exchanges, and other healthcare systems from day one. See our Glossary for more healthcare and technical terms.
Have a question not answered here? Contact us at support@carelaunch.health and we'll be happy to help.